


It's Pretty

by CielTheEarl



Series: Autumn is for Changing [2]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe, Break Up, Exes, Fluff, Jealous Alois Trancy, M/M, Older Ciel Phantomhive - Freeform, Sweet Sebastian Michaelis, heated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CielTheEarl/pseuds/CielTheEarl
Summary: "You met someone... didn't you?"





	It's Pretty

Leaves bound themselves to the window panes as the rain turned them transparent. The pair of us were inside, mindlessly spending time together. "So..." Alois began as his head tipped over the edge of the bed. "How has it been?"

I looked over my shoulder and shrugged, lifting pencil off of paper as I watched for his reaction. "It's been alright. Why do you ask?"

The blonde laughed, making his Adam's apple bob strangely. "Why wouldn't I ask?"

Rolling my eyes in agitation I turned back to my page, littered with angled lines and sketched feathers. "You never ask." I quipped and finished shading in a wing.

"I always ask!" I heard my friend argue, accompanied by the rustling of the wind and bedsheets as he and the leaves whirled about.

I made a sarcastic, unsure noise and slumped onto the floor. "You never ask," I confirmed, legs lifting up into the air.

"I do!"

"Do not."

"Do!"

"Don't."

"I definitely-"

"Look. Just tell me why you want to know how my first week has been and we can move on." I found myself snapping, casting him a chilly glare. "You never ask how work is going. Never."

"Maybe I want to start asking." He said with a kind of patchiness that always made my heart ache. Slipping off of the bed once and for all, he came to look over my shoulder. "It's pretty." He commented, tongue in cheek as he stared at my doodle.

"It's disproportionate," I stated before scrunching the leaf of paper into a ball and rolling it across the carpet. Alois made a pained noise and began complaining, whining like an injured puppy.

He nudged my shoulder, making me roll onto my back with a flurry of jumpers and blonde hair. He came to lean over me, face like a breeze as he gave me a long, hard look. "Your eyes look different."

I found myself laughing at his stupidity. "How can my eyes look _different?"_

His expression remained stony and cold, rivalling the heavy beating of the rain outside. Perching on my lap, he placed both hands on my shoulders and pushed me, albeit gently, into the carpet. "You tell me." He bit, cocking his head. "How was work?" He repeated.

"Why are you so obsessed with work?" I asked, moving as to push him off of me.

Sighing, Alois moved in closer, dipping his head down and trailing his words towards my neck. My breath hitched as a million memories flooded my system. _Just friends. _"Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Okay," he breathed into the hollow of my neck. "Tell me what's _right."_

"Lou, stop," I complained, shaking my head and swatting his prying hands away. It was painful, the words ringing around my mind, accompanied by the symphony of a wailing afternoon.

His hands stayed clasped in my jumper while his mouth stayed inches away from his favourite place to look, his favourite place to taste.

_Just friends._

"How was work?"

"It was fine! I've told you! What more do you want?" I pleaded now, head spinning as his coconut shampoo caught on my heartstrings.

"Your eyes have changed."

I groaned in frustration, feeling a horrible sense of deja vu, "Stop repeating yourself. Tell me what you mean." I grunted, knees rocking him as he smiled sadly into my neck.

"You met someone... didn't you."

I stilled, legs stuck halfway between the floor and Alois' behind as I felt his gaze crushing me. Blinking up at him, I saw how his own eyes had changed.

I had seen that look before, at his brother's funeral. He had turned to me when I asked if he was alright. That look, it shone above the wet dirt shovelled on the little boy's coffin, shone above the drizzle and the marble gravestones and the damp sky. He had nodded, glacial blue eyes shining.

_Acceptance._

I nodded sheepishly, feeling my cheeks heat up and the friction from the carpet dance up and down my hair.

"You met him at work."

I nodded.

"He's the one with the dorky haircut, the tall guy with brown eyes."

Another nod.

"What's his name?"

"Sebastian," I said, feeling a huge weight flutter from my shoulders, like the wings scrawled out on the scrunched up page, little wooden feathers dancing through my mind. "He's kind."

"He's... different."

I laughed a bit, "I suppose he is." I agreed, watching as the ice cracked in Alois' eyes. "He's smart... hardworking."

"_Really _different, then," Alois replied, seemingly stuck. He smiled again, blonde hair curdling around his ears. "Have you guys..."

"We're not together. Yet." I mumbled, entranced by my friend's little lips, curling into one another. "He's asked me to go with him to lunch tomorrow."

Alois paused, then nodded, slowly leaning away from me and shuffling back towards my bed. "What did you say?"

"I said I'd think about it." I shrugged and sat up, running a hand through my static-infused hair.

I could almost see Alois patching up his mask with plaster, gauze and smiles. "Have you thought about it?" The wind banged on the window, shattering the pursuing silence.

"I don't know."

My words hung in the air for a while, tangling in the fairy lights as they cascaded down my wall of posters. They swirled in with the glass of paint-stained water, waiting to be cleaned up. They swivelled their way through the pages of my expensive textbooks and cheap notebooks. They hit my friend in his heart, snapping any strings we had left in our poor little love song.

We hadn't spoken like this for a while. We hadn't stayed tuned. It was evident by the way our insecurities rang out in my bedroom, shaking the pair of us out of it.

"I think you should go on the date," Alois commented, _finally. _Standing up, he strode over to my wardrobe, diving in before I could protest.

"What are you doing?" I asked, voice cracking halfway through. Honesty was tiring.

A blonde mop of pretty blonde hair popped out from behind the wardrobe door and a misshapen smile cracked up Alois' face. "Well, you've got to plan what you're going to wear, duh."

"R-right." I stuttered, stumbling to my feet and coming to join my friend by the wardrobe.

He searched through my various shirts and jumpers, fingers dancing over their collars. I got a distinct sense that he was burning this moment into his memory, just as I was. _Acceptance._

"How could you tell?" I asked a while later, watching as Alois began to dig through draws for some trousers to wear. "How could you tell that I liked Sebastian?" I reiterated, feeling oddly embarrassed.

Alois didn't reply. Instead, he stalked towards me, clothes in hand and held up a blue shirt to my torso. He swivelled, turning to look in the mirror, like the mother of a bride. "It's pretty." He blurted, and I found myself wondering whether he found everything pretty or nothing pretty at all. "You should wear this."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, blue is definitely your colour."

"No, I mean the date. You're sure I won't regret it?" I asked, changing my previous question of _you're sure you're alright with it?_

"I want you to be happy, Ciel. That's all I've ever wanted. He seems sweet. And honest... and he's probably got a big dick." He smirked and I hit him in retaliation. "And... I know that you like him a lot."

"How?"

"Because you look at him how you used to look at me." Alois offered, going back to being that pathetic kicked puppy again.

I didn't know quite how to respond. It sounded so cliche, so expected. But I hadn't expected it. I didn't think I looked at Sebastian _any '_way'. Especially not in a way Alois should have recognised.

It made me think of horrible thoughts. About how I had been able to see that look I had assumed was acceptance coming from Alois.

When he said his goodbyes, they were heavier than usual. He hugged me tighter and wished me luck with Sebastian. He told me to keep on drawing and keep up with the uni work.

There was a sinking feeling drowning me as I fought with the truth of the matter. I wouldn't be seeing Alois again.

It wasn't acceptance I saw in his eyes when he buried his brother and it wasn't acceptance I saw when I nodded yes, there was another.

It was indifference. Cold, hard indifference. As mean as kind little Alois could be.

His glacial eyes paired with his plastered lies were saying; _you're dead to me._


End file.
